From China Daily:
Beijing’s first government-backed Internet forum for homosexuals has slowly begun to take off, despite initial reluctance by authorities to give it too much publicity.
Fu Qingyuan, an official with the Centre for Disease Prevention and Control of Chaoyang District, said the centre created the forum two months ago but did not publicize it until Sunday because they did not want to cause unnecessary public debate.
The forum was created to promote HIV/AIDS prevention awareness among China’s homosexuals and offer professional assistance to the group, Fu said. [Full Text]
See also “China’s gays ignore government-backed Internet chatrooms” from the South China Morning Post:
Technorati Tags: AIDS, homosexuality
Two government-endorsed internet chat forums for gays are largely being ignored by Beijing’s gay community due to worries over government monitoring, state media said on Monday.
The chat rooms, attached to the website of the Disease Prevention and Control Center of Beijing’s Chaoyang district, aims to allow the gay community to share their feelings as well as offer counselling on Aids, Xinhua news agency said.
The chat rooms, “Spiritual home” and “A space for comrades”, on bbs.cystd.com opened in June but only 37 postings had been put up as of Monday.
See more posts about AIDS and homosexuality by CDT.